Monday, October 27, 2008

Who went to the temple? i did! Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 5:35 PM

Hola familia y otros

ok first and formost this devastating news. the package that mom sent two weeks ago, that i had loved and wanted to receive with all my heart, got sent back home last week. so yeah it will be at home in a couple of days. sorry about that but like i tried to explain before the company that used to do the packages quit and now they sit in a mexican postage office for a week and if the person doesn´t sign for them, it goes back. so idk what is going to happen with the one coming. hopefully i can make it to the office before it gets sent home, haha not bitter, full of love

k that was a little much of a rant but its over. it was great to hear from mom and dad.... haha and i´m going to laugh and type, im sorry. anyways, congrats coop on an awesome season. now you can help mom around the house more! and get grades up before basketball haha jk you are great man, keep it up. and before i forget, the dhl connection that the other elder had was only for receiving packages, no help on the 850 pesos. so yeah idk, idk what to do but its ok cause i haven´t boughten anything because we havent shopped. so yeah i need to figure some stuff out. but good news on the letter front. presidentes parents are coming to help in the office and he told me in the interviews this week that if i give the office a letter to send out that it would be gone in a week so yeah they come this saturday. sorry t money, i dont think you are going t get a letter. haha so frustrating! really im pretty calm right now, like on the outside, but really i want to scream cause of all the little dumb things haha anyways im good.

i have heard of that four stage thing that you got mom, i was there for the devotional. im in the hate everything phase haha no cierto, but it is definitely difficult sometimes. like we dont have gas or water in our house haha because we done have money but that will change monday so its all good.

sorry you had to work all week mom. im sure it is paying off. with all these rumors about the US that we hear from members, it could help alot. and yeah the pictures are great. they are a little bit of a pain at first but totally worth it once it is done so please, not a lot, but continue. and i can try the card again but idk. and yes mom I can understand spanish enough to poke the right button haha jk i dont. i will try again

ok so my life. we had interviews with the president this week and it was pretty not as cool as the last one but it was kind of understandable. the mission has dive bombed. we went from 400 baptisms to 130 i think this month. he was pretty discouraged. i just want to help him in anyway. and yeah we talked a little bit about a letter that elder tolosa got about a talk an apostle giving a testimony in a ward this month about how a terrible thing is going to happen and its going to be rough so yeah honestly it scared me. find the talk, and yeah be smart about money haha like i dont need four packages before christmas. but yeah anyways we only had a couple of days to work this week because we went to the temple for two days to help out. first day i help park cars and the second i introduced the prevideo to the temple for visitars. totally cool. i have a lot of pictures but i forgot my camera so next week. the temple is beautiful! so amazing and i got to go inside once and they ahve an entire wall of the painting of christ coming to the americas. like twenty yards long and ten feet high. so cool. not tryingto be a neener neener but yeah it was sweet. i recomend it to anyone that happens to be in mexico. also got to see alot of guys from my generation. saw elder memmott haha the first thing he says to me is, you been loosing weight? haha you look real thin in the face! haha in his country accent. love him. and really i probably have because i was sick with something this week and i didnt eat much. but now i am better and later i ate a 30 ounce steak to put it all back haha some of elder tolosas old converts took us out. but yeah i had some good laughs with him and his spanish is bomb, like im alright like i can understand pretty well and explain myself but he was bomb.

so two funny stories, well one and the other is just funny to me. first we were at a members house eating and we were talking about eye color. kind of boring with mexicans because they all have brown eyes but with me they were enchanced haha the hermana told me that my eyes were the color of miel... honey haha i thought, wow.. thats is enchanting haha then i explained that we dont use honey as a word to describe eyes in the US but i am going to start it. the second is that we were with the zone leaders for interviews for their converts and we were talking about our first names because everyone wants to know, so i say mine and they dont understand and move on and it just so happened that elder brown, the new zone leader, is Taylor Brown. and since the only other taylre that elder tolosa knows is my tay, he just busted of laughing, pointing at elder brown and me, almost falling out of his seat. haha we had to explain it to him haha

ok i got to run but i love you all and pray for you often. i want to share a quick thought. in spanish the phrase, what im going to do, ¿que voy a hacer? and what i am going to be, ¿que voy a ser? sound exactly the same when pronounced... just a thought about our actions.

k i love you all and you are my testimony and strength every day. to the moon and back

con amor,
Elder W Gene Christensen

Monday, October 20, 2008

viva mexico Sent: Monday, October 20, 2008 2:21 PM

hey howdy hi guys and gals
how is everyone doing? that is kind of a rhetorical question because i know cause everyone wrote me haha congrats to all for this wonderful achievement. it was wonderful to see how everyone is rocking it and dominating what they are doing. first and formost, jenny.. feliz cumplianos!!! yeahhh haha that is awesome that you got a washing machine! i am totally jealous cause i dont have one... haha but yeah happy birtday sis, hope it was great and yeah im still working on a gift idea so any help would be great.
but yeah cooper great stuff with the ipod, 160 bucks could keep me alive here for two months, just remember that haha and danielle, sometimes if not all the time we are the teacher so that we can learn.

what the heck happened byu!!!?? somebody was not praying hard enough. whatever, already over it haha and go broncos! sorry britton. and mom before i forget, your package is here but the problem is that the company that holds them doesnt just turn teh packages to the offices anymore and every missionary has to go sign for it personally. i was supposed to go today but they didnt call me. and yes i got the dear edler from tay and from sterl last week. love that kid sterl. how is he doing? every day im inthe mission i think how awesome sterl would be at this or that. much better than me haha but yeah i am going to send a package home soonish. i went to the dhl store because it does US and gauranteed not to be stolen haha and for one kilo.... 850 pesos to los alamos.... but hey elder arnett got his companion, elder tapp, i like him. from idaho falls, and i feel so cool when he asks me what a phrase means or a word and i know it! haha just a little pat on the back, but the real point of the story is this, they are working with an inactive member that is one of the mayor heads of mexico dhl and he gave them a password or something to get the packages across cheap. so yeah i need to talk to them. I am making a commitment right now to send a package with letters and coopers and jennys presents by the end of the this month.

which brings me to my next point, the debit card from home doesnt work... haha i tried it and it said no and i tried again and it said incorrect number so idk what to do. i used the number mom gave me. so yeah mom if you could work onthat that would be great cause i need money for coopers jersey and the package... no rush or anything haha but really thanks mom.

ok my week.... well the beginning was with elder arnett and yeah it was interesting knocking and teaching as a threesome haha elder arnett is kind of loud and fun and very likable, so likable that all of our investigadores were sad when he did come after he got his companion and just looked at us like... where is the other one? haha but hey what can you do. speaking of our investigadores, the family gonzalez put their date as the 5th of december so yeah totally crushing seeing as we were hoping for next week. wendy, our most favorite and best moved!! and we dont have her cell to track her down haha very very frustrating but we are going to go to her street and knock every door until we find news. and yeah no baptisms, no new investigadores, it is hard right now. but yeah we have interviews tomorrow with the presidente so that should get me fired back up haha we went go karting today. the zone leaders crashed into the tire wall and totally destroyed it haha sorry random but yeah i had to speak in church again yesterday. 25 minutes on la obra misional. probably the best talk i have ever written but yeah not the best presented ever haha i felt comfortable speaking and when i didnt know a word i would just turn around and ask the bishop. so yeah it was pretty cool.

so yeah i am going to go ahead and slowly being to wrap this up. I dont ahve many exciting stories this week. almost got eaten by a huge dog but that was about it. next week. hold it!! totally almost forgot! i married a preson this week haha or at least i was there and they were an investigadora and i payed for it! (800 pesos.. ridiculous) haha but yeah it was very, hold hands, this is what a marraige means and yeah sign here. haha regardless it was still very cool and i just hope mine is more exciting haha jk
it has rained for two days straight, bring on the sun. dont need portland right now. and yes mom another sweater would be wonderful!!! like just one to be in the house or even anther for the work. everything else is holding up pretty well.


alright guys im heading out. I love you all and hope to hear from you all again. do great and know that i and our loving Heavenly Father care and think about you often. i GET TO HELP WITH THE TEMPLE THIS WEEK!!! kind of excited haha ill tell you how it goes
to the moon and back...

con amor
Elder Westley G. Christensen
p.s. sometimes camping is fun?.... haha

Thursday, October 16, 2008

viviendo la sueno.. Sent: Monday, October 13, 2008 8:37 PM

hey guys
so yeah it was another crazy monday, i want to send off a thing of letters, not through the pouch cause it is ridiculously slow, like 5 months, so yeah idk when im going to do that. so tay, t money sterl and nadar, it is all coming. i just dont know when haha. but i appreciate all of your letters and i hope that you are all doing very well

next, coop, my main man!!! the big 14 now, eso!! haha thats so terrrific man, im really pumped that you had such a cool birthday. i have had the pleasure to view a touch and idk, its a lot of money, but it can also be a great tool. just take care of it so i can steal it when i get home. but yeah your growing up man, its been a bummer not being able to be there for your last two birthdays but i want to let you know that i love you and think about you all the time. work on your patience and ability to talk with others, like mom and dad. that is what my president has me working on right now, patience, so if you can master it like i know you can, youre going to be a bomb missionary. which reminds me, yeah we need some help haha so if you guys want to fast as a family that would be awesome. we are working on a mom that needs a desire to be baptized. hermana gonzalez, i love her but she just doesnt see the importance. any help would be awesome

k my week really fast, this is ridiculous having to right this late and this little haha i know you will all understand hopefullly
so yeah i did have time to organize my thoughts so here it goes
wednesday we were in a lesson with a family and the hermano looks over and says, how are you feeling to me and i was like uh a little weird but nothing really and he pointed to his eye and i went to look in the mirror and my left eye had swollen, or the skin around it, till it was like four times the size of the other one haha i had a good laugh about it and took pictures which i will share later but yeah i just slapped an alovera leaf on it and the next morning it was great. i couldnt tell you what really happen haha apparently alo vera heals infects too, didnt know that

we are still with elder arnett. we have him again for this week because mexico has really closed the border to the US.

but yeah no new investigators and we had a baptism planned for this sunday but it fell through because we had interviews with the president which leads into my last story before i have to run

saturday we get told that we have interviews with the president, and not regular ones, with the president the next day. so we go to the offices and elder arnett talked first for an hour and comes out grinning praising the presidents name. he is going to be the same. elder tolosa next and an hour later comes out and i pick my back pack up to go and the president calls me over to his office. i was surprised cause they had told me that i wasnt going to talk with the president but yeah i go in and he is just like, how are you doing friend? and i am like, im doing pretty good president. and yeah we just had an awesome discussion about everything. the president was like are you a prefectionist? and yeah i expect alot of myself and hence others. and he was jsut like, when you came in the door i just saw a younger me and yeah you remind me alot of myself. obviously i had to brush my shoulder haha jk but yeah he just gave me a lot of advice, how i need to be able to control that... idk characteristic sometimes with others, because we all start from different points. and yeah he is just so cool and he was just saying all this stuff about me that he didnt know and was just like i feel that you have something to give elder tolosa, i wanted to change you two after that night but i feel that you need to give him something. and i had felt the same way and yeah haha it was an awesome experience. i truely love him and know that he is called of god. he ended with a elder, i know the language is difficult and if you are like me which you are, it is going to take a little bit longer, but i need to grow up quick. and he gave me a blessing and shook my hand.
one of the greatest men i know...
so yeah other news haha i ate cactus.. not as fun as it sounds haha it was ok, just kind of slimy. and yeah..... i cant think of anything else. danielle im sorry, its rough sometimes but when we are struggling we know that we are trying
i read my patriartical blessing. i cant spell, again and one line totally hit me in the face, speaking about my mission
broaden your shoulders, prepare yourself to be a light and stand to others, and do not fear man.
obviously it says it a lot cooler but that is the jist
dont be afraid to be amazing, president mendoza of south africa, look it up
and tay i wish i could write you something but i got to run. sorry you are wearing sweaters, i wore shorts and a t shirt and i was hot today haha
k i love you all and hope the best for you. thank you for your prayers and love, you are all an example to me. i know our savior lives and that he knows each one of us if we take the time to get to know him. happy birthday jen. to the moon and back.....

con amor
Elder Westley Gene Christensen

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Westley! Sent: Tuesday October 7, 8:15am

hola familia
k yeah so i know that it is tuesday and i was supposed to write yesterday
but yeah yesterday was lame haha transfers and nonsense all day long and
than i didn´t have time to write back to any of your emails. i´m pretty
sure i´m not breaking any rules by writing because it wasn´t my choice not
to write and it´s a requirement that i write my family every week so here i
am haha no i´m here not only because it is a requirement haha love you
guys. sorry about the stress to everyone that was concerned, mom. but yeah
i´m just going to go ahead and talk about my week real fast and yeah great
stuff.
we can start with yesterday because it was the most interesting. cambios,
or transfers, came in on sunday night and they were my first. i´can´t
believe that i have been in mexico for 6 weeks, i still feel like i don´t
know anything. that is because i don´t haha but yeah so elder tolosa and i
are still together and he is still the district leader. but two of the
five americans from my zone went home this week. elder doyle, who i
liked and was my zone leader and elder hewirzon or something haha i didn´t
know him very well but they were good. they were really excited to go home
though, like elder doyle just got in the car and wanted to leave without
saying bye or pictures and it just made me wonder how i´m going to feel
when i´m done, whether the president is going to have to box me up to get
me out of here or i´ll be like them. i´m hoping the first but as of right
now that´s not really it. but i expect that to change. other cambios,
elder arnett the other american in my district, his companion the one that
i went to the df with and is yeah.. needs to go home, got transfered but
elder arnett stayed and is going to be a dad!! to an american!! very
exciting because i won´t be the baby anymore haha but yeah they are having
visa problems still so it could be a week before he comes. thus elder
arnett is pulling a kind of threesome with us during the morning and
evening but on splits with members during the day. i´m just hoping that i
know more spanish than the new kid haha that could be another humbling
experience haha but elder arnett will be good, he is kind of like uncle
aaron football type doesn´t put up with crap. oh yeah new zone leader,
amercian , elder brown, i like him but it is his first time as zl so we
will have to see how he does. we also have hermanas again... but they are
not in my district haha i didn´t mean anything by that at all. yesterday
we just had to carry their beds from the zl house to their new house on our
backs to two miles. good memories. i enjoyed it.
our investigadores, i can´t spell in english haha but yeah found ivonne,
the single mom, and yeah doesn´t want anything to do with us. i think her
ex had something to do with it but whatever. elder tolosa didn´t seem to
mind much and my zone for the most part didn´t seem to mind that we were
the lowest baptizing zone in the mission. yeah... idk it´s way frustrating,
but í´m going to make the best of the next six weeks because i´m not going
to have a mediocar, i dont know how to spell, mission. idk, elder tolosa
and i have to have a heart to heart here pretty soon. other investigadores,
wendy, from the familia mota has become the most interested in our message
so yeah we are hoping to have a baptism this week with her and her
daughter, the rest of the family... yeah we need to work harder. haha sigh
haha familia gonzalez, idk what´s happening, we have taught all the lessons
and they love us but the mom is this like, why is this important to me? so
yeah, but i felt a couple impressions last night to bear my testimory to
her that this is the greatest gift that we have to offer. we will see how
it goes. and yeah we have a couple new families but nothing really serious.
i tracted for 6 hours every day last week, knocked soo many doors with so
many nos, but yeah i liked it haha
so yeah two funny stories really fast, once during one of my 6 hour
tracting i was talking to this lady and i felt something touch my head so i
thought it was a butterfly or whatever, its mexico haha and so i brushed it
off. and i´m still talking and it touches my head again and so i brush it
off again and thus as the conversation is coming to an end the thing full
on grabs my head and i freak out! i´m all waving my arms and my backpack is
going everywhere and im making weird sounds and i look up to see a branch
perfectly placed to my height rocking back and forth. needless to say the
lady left the crazy american alone...haha
second, we were coming back from a lunch appointment and i was eating an
apple and was at the core . we happened to be in a park at the time with
basketball hoops and so i tell elder tolosa to watch and of course i make
it from the courner like kobe and i keep walking trying to be humble about
it. however... there was a lady cop that happened to be sitting in her
truck doing nothing and felt the need to tell me to go pick up my trash
from the pile of trash that it eventually landed in and dispose of it
properly. that apple core could have fed a starving dog. haha elder tolosa
had a good laugh about it.
so yeah little side note, we got a cell phone from the president because he
gave them to all the district leaders. elder tolosa is like a little kid
with a game boy, haha sometimes i want to step on it. but yeah if you ever
want to hit us up with a text the number is... no se crea! haha i´m still
fighting the good fight.
general conference
amazing haha i don´t know if it was just because i am on a mission or in
mexico or something but the parts that i heard were amazing. i saw parts
for two reasons. first it was in spanish for the saturday session. oh
yeah totally watched the saturday sessions for the first time in my life,
they are actually really good too haha should have watched those more when
i was younger... but yeah we eventually got a tv for the americans to watch
it english and that´s when i was like wow this is amazing. in spansih i
could understand the jist of what they were saying and with one translator
that i loved, understood all, but it just didn´t have the say effect. it´s
like the translators eat the mike and try to talk haha but it was great.
sunday the tv was taken to be used in another classroom for everyone that
came. i mean people were sitting in the hall, floor, anywhere you could
fit a person in the stake center. and thirty minutes into it, the power
went out... it happens here randomly, like the water haha but yeah i didn´t
watch any except the first and last thirty minutes on sunday. going to have
to wait for the ensign. but yeah the parts i liked, yes talyre the
childerns choir, i was just wondering if the passed out juice or something
to keep them awake haha and yeah i gues dad and coop with have to explain
and a young gentleman from byu but the first presidency in the priesthood
session. i can´t describe it. it felt like ever talk was directed at me
and freaking rocked. the submarine, i command you to turn around! bein
chito. and president monson, the three things we need to do, do what you
need to do, be what you need to be and yeah great stuff, i´m looking
forward to studying more when the ensign comes.

and mom i am on the look out for a package, we have a zone conferecnce
manana so maybe.. haha no but sometime soon hopefully.
k i got to run but i love you all and that reminds me, danielle, sometimes
we need to change a little bit of our imperfections before we can hope for
more from others. have patience with crazy people. i mean look at me haha
i meant my companion. i can always do better.
and jen and coop, sorry about the stress but you´re both amazing, keep it
up. i´m thinking of a jersey for coop and idk for jenny. so coop, look up
on ps2 the mexicna soccer clubs and see which one you like. and jenny,
anything haha and the jerseys are around 500 pesos.. yeah so mom and dad
haha
k really i got to go but i love you all so much with all of my heart and i
pray for you ofter. you are my foundation.
to the moon and back...

con amor
Elder Westley Gene Christensen